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The colors of hyperspace swirled like a psychedelic flood in all directions out the windowports. When the Shadow Chaser gave another violent lurch, Jacen tumbled backward to the deck; it took all his concentration to guard the precious nest.

"LTh, never mind," he said. "It can wait."

Jaina gripped the armrests of her seat while the ship rocked back and forth. Her tools and the electronic di-scanner remote she had just repaired flew like projectiles to the bulkheads, then smashed onto the deckplates, ruined.

When the ship momentarily stabilized, her brother crawled to his feet, cradling something in one arm, his hair even more tousled than usual. He checked to make sure Tenel Ka was okay. The warrior girl stood up, planting her booted feet wide apart, seeking balance as the Shadow Chaser shuddered and bucked its way through the disturbance.

"What is happening?" Tenel Ka said.

Ahead in the cockpit, Lowie and Chewbacca roared to each other, fighting the controls.

"An ion storm?" Em Teedee chimed in with an electronic wail. "Are you absolutely certain? We're doomed!"

Jaina's lips pressed into a tight, grim line.

"It's an ion storm, all right. Just bad luck.

Couldn't predict this. We plotted the shortest path to Kashyyyk using the navicomputer. The on-line catalogs only display stable astronomical hazards-star clusters, black holes, and high-energy nebulas-but, ion storms come and go. They don't have any set position, but they sure ripple up hyperspace when you pass through'em."

"Is it serious?" Jacen asked. Droplets of sweat broke out on his brow.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Just have to wait and see," Jaina said.

Tenel Ka stood with her hand to her utility belt, ready to fight some tangible foe with a throwing knife, her lightsaber, even her fibercord.

But none of those would do any good against an ion storm.

Chewbacca and Lowie grappled with the controls, hairy fingers flying over panels, yanking levers. The Shadow Chaser winked out of hyperspace and lurched back into the fringes of the furious ion storm.

"Uh-oh," Jacen said. "I forgot to tell you that we might have some damage to our ion shield generator." He held up the nested bundle of wires and insulation.

Jaina whirled, more worried than ever.

"Oh, no! That could-" As the Shadow Chaser plummeted into the space storm, they were immediately surrounded by a spiderweb of high-energy lightning bolts, powerful discharges that arched across the seething knot of hot gas that formed the unexpected interstellar hurricane.

The ship thrashed like a mad bantha, throwing its passengers about.

Jacen braced his shoulder against a control bar, and Tenel Ka fell into him. He held the warrior girl upright, pinning both of them against the wall, still cradling his newfound pet in one hand. Jaina, trying to struggle toward the cockpit, fell flat on her face.

The Shadow Chaser's rear engines kicked in, and the sublight drive heaved them away from the rippling ion cloud. In the pilot seat Chewbacca groaned, gripping the controls and wrestling to keep them on a straight course, the shortest path out of danger.

Lowie cried out as fingernails of icy blue electricity skittered across the control panels, burning out subsystem after subsystem.

Behind the back bulkheads, the straining ion shield generators squealed loudly in surrender. Then, with a loud bang, they fell silent.

The rippling colors dwindled outside the cockpit window, and the Shadow Chaser careened onward, spiraling out into open space, safe at last from the storm. Still, Jaina shuddered to think of how much damage the stray ion bursts must have caused.

Jacen brushed himself off and forced a lopsided grin. 'Now, uh, as I was saying about that damage to the ion shields..."

He held out the eight-legged rodent, which cowered in her nest, as if she comprehended the trouble she had caused. 'I found this critter's nest in the machinery. I took her out, but I needed one of you to fix the damage."

"It would appear